dichotomy

That's an interesting point that makes me curious to why humans haven't (with the exception of microbes) forced a sharp change in traits on all the other species we are impacting on? Or, is agriculture and farming the example of forcing a sharp change in traits?

I'll try again. The point being – People have made and continue to make observations, form hypotheses, do the experiments and build the evidence needed to form a theory of why ADD/ADHD and the like (loosely labelled disorders) exist and inhibit academic and social performance. Those theories will then be put out to peer review to confirm things. And I believe it is both genetic and environmental. And genes can be turned on at the right age bracket and with the right environmental triggers, like a slap to the head. Social/behavioural experiments are very touchy subjects, think about Nazism, cannibalism; head hunting etc, these cultures really believed it was the right thing to do. Parents who are abusive to kids probably think it’s the right thing to do. It’s pretty simple really. What’s difficult is to change that mistaken belief for our current time and place. And spoiling kids is no good either. The balance is what is difficult to achieve and what we all strive for.

That’s a very good question, and I don’t know. It would have to be empirically tested by our scientific friends. But I’m sure some pressure would be required. That’s how behaviour is modified, yes? Behaviour can be re-conditioned. Even cannibals and right wing christians can be re-programmed when they see the right evidence. No, I don’t jest. Some form of pressure is necessary. This forum is full of pressure, and generally the positive sort. If baggage is our shared, not so good, history; then we need this history to guide us in the present and future. How else do we make successful decisions without good/bad history? I agree. I’ve gone too far here, thanks for the pressure . I’ll go back to speculating it’s a significant amount. I’ll patiently wait for the evidence to build. Of course it’s a highly touchy subject for research. How many scientists would put their hands up for this and risk a load of parental abuse and threats, even from their own parents? How many abusive parents would put their hands up for big brother like surveillance of their parenting practices? Not many, I’d safely bet. And particularly not abusive parents. Eye sight never recovers after a certain amount of time has passed (6 months?). Yep, as you say, we don’t know everything there is to know about genes, including how nurture shapes them, let alone nature. I’m not suggesting giving up hope on children. And that finger tip including the whole nail story is a hoax. Are you trolling now? I cut my finger tip off including part of the nail and it grew back too, no pig involved. It’s not remarkable, just a widely known medical fact. All I’m suggesting is that in particular environments it may be a successful set of characteristics. In academic environments, it would generally be a disaster, but I’m sure there are exceptions.

I'm sure that's the case. But have nurture links been found too? If not I'm sure theyll be found soon. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080422150659.htm "The most important implication of this study is that people with the same genetic makeup can be in different environments and have different expression profiles," Idaghdour says. "The same gene can be expressed in the city but not in a rural place because of the environment. So you must look at the environment when studying associations between genes and disease." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080717211651.htm Sometimes the truth hurts. Nothing ever happens without some pressure. The unknown quantity is just how much pressure should be applied to abusive parents in order to force a change. And I’m not speculating that all ADD cases are from parental abuse, just most. And genes, at the right age, can be activated by environmental pressures. There is that experiment (anyone got the link?) where kittens blind folded on one eye from birth, for a period of time, never recover their vision in the blind folded eye, suggesting a lack of the right environmental input has cased this problem. Genes didn’t get the right input to function correctly. That’s interesting if true, because boys are the ones that are thumped around more often than girls, and primarily by their fathers. ADD like symptoms are possibly an evolutionary relic that was vital for survival at one point in time and still is vital in some cultures. At least with some form of measurable testing, ADD kids have a chance at being diagnosed correctly and given effective behavioural, diet, exercise and medicinal therapy. And still, their parents could use a decent dose of the “proper” therapy themselves.

Well, laughter and smiling are thought to stems from nervous reations (If I recall correctly), which takes us back to the fear response. So I can see that smiling can be universal. But as CDawin said, a smile can mean, 'I'm about to knock your teeth out', too. Depending on context.

I looked at the same article. http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34626 I was interested in if they looked at sports itself as a subculture. The whole blind athlete thing didn't convince me at all. Behaviour is both innate and learned. To what percentage? who know? To really prove cultural universality of behaviour you would probably need to compare it with a tribe of people living on the moon. Behaviours that seem to be universal to my eyes are fear and ecstasy. I'm sure that there are heaps that are unique to a culture.

Perhaps - 1. Rampant incorrect diagnoses. 2. Pressures to continually grow medication sales figures. 3. It's a fashionable diagnosis for the media Smacking kids teaches kids to smack others. I suspect you'd be surprised if you were a fly on the wall to see just how many parents of "ADD" kids disproportionately hit, shake, and scream at their kids early in life. If you grow up in a family of cannibals, then you are likely to become one.

I find it interesting that lions and tigers can reproduce with each, yet produce sterile male offspring. Dogs, on the other hand, to my knowledge, can successfully reproduce fertile male and female offspring, from wolf to pug. Why are very physically different dogs successful with producing fertile offspring of either sex, while cats don’t seem to have the same success? Is it the nomadic Man and dog companionship that has made this possible? I also find it interesting that homosapiens are in the same boat as dogs: We can successfully reproduce from Pigmy to Chinese oriental. So I assume, in general, if other creatures travel with man long enough they too can look pretty diverse (like man and dogs), yet continue to reproduce successfully.

And what lifeform can exist independantly? Nothing that I can think of. We all depend on an environment of some sort that agrees with us. Maybe some evidence that cancer may be a living organism, a parasite? Or, perhaps an organism in the process of becoming 'independently' alive. “Scientists from The Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton and the University of California discovered that the underlying process in tumor formation is the same as for life itself—evolution.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080801094300.htm

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080811_pride.htm "Blind athletes who have never seen a victory celebration raise their arms in triumph when they win and slump their shoulders when they lose, much like sighted athletes, researchers have found." When suggesting that pride and shame behavioural expressions are cross cultural and universal. I wonder if they took into account the culture of competitive sports which is a subculture in itself? They seem to shoot themselves in the foot when the say that western athletes display shame differently. Making behaviour not so universal then after all.

Too late? for what? Behavioural modification? I agree that there are lots of examples of semi-retarded individuals that have little to no hope of behavioural modification, but those correctly (and sadly incorrectly) diagnosed with ADD have a good chance of behavioural modification when the environmental conditions are right for change to take place. With that success rate, you should start a clinic.

That's not necessarily the case, nurture can be the root causes of loads of behavioural problems. Including in the very young. That classic experiment with little Albert is a case in point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment If our environment switches behavioral genes on/off, and studies suggest this is the case, then how do we know if our genes are simply pre-set from conception, or, if environmental cue/s switch gene/s on and off resulting in something like ADD? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070910173810.htm “Scientists at Johns Hopkins have developed a mouse model for schizophrenia in which a mutated gene linked to schizophrenia can be turned on or off at will.”

The problem with physical punishment of the young is that the young think that this is the way to solve their own problems in life. As for soft forms of punishment (time-out) having a co-relation to the rise in ADD? I think you might want to firstly look at the rise in the eagerness of clinicians to diagnose what constitutes ADD firstly. The hot headed kids of yesterday would probably be classified as ADD today. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-24076787_ITM "Predictors of aggression across three generations among sons of alcoholics: relationships involving grandparental and parental alcoholism, child aggression, marital aggression and parenting practices"

Thanks iNow, some good information there. does any one know if there are graphs with much larger scales of time (than from 1958) for CO2 release and absorption? I'm hoping for this Paleomap (http://www.scotese.com/images/globaltemp.jpg) graph type of scale, but I'm eager to see what else might be available? The IPCC seems to be working within a 1000 year scale, from what I can see.

Can someone please point me to a widely recognised graph/chart that compares the estimated percentages of man made GW to natural GW? This map that shows us that we may "naturally" be coming out of the last ice age has got me interested. Even if man stops contributing to GW, it looks like it will eventually be ideal weather for the cold blooded animals once again (lawyers and politicians;)), with or without man contributing to GW? I've also recently read that an ice age can be here and gone in a 3 year stint, an occurance that apparently isn't just a recorded one-off event. Basically, rapid climate change can and has occured in the past, without our handy techy know how.

Bullies have a good sense of physics, that is, they generally pick on people lighter than they are which generally improves their probability of victory. IMO, they generally pick on people because their Parent/primary carer, picked on them (and who knows where that cycle begins, in the trees I'm guessing?). They simply think this is what ‘real’ Men/Women should do. For e.g. they become the father figure, their victim becomes them. This can be sometimes successfully pointed out to them. Although, unfortunately it often can take a broken or bloodied nose to do so. And it obviously presents a possible retaliation danger to the inital victim (which I am yet to witness). I've seen quite a few even-ish physical match-ups where the bully intelligently leaves his victim alone afterwards. Funny about that. I’ve seen confident smart kids, dumb kids, shy kids, fat, skinny, huge and even ‘cool’ for a year kids (and adults) get bullied. Bullying rears up, in a very ugly way, when the bully can easily over power his victim.

Great minds, label things alike!

You’re a marketing natural! God + Hooters + food + cheap + attracts the opposite sex + easy money + guaranteed to work. Now, that should get some more hits. 53 view so far. let’s check in two weeks. This is a scientific test!

That sounds like a modern day politician.

Because labels are, 1. simple and 2. effective. Your brain doesn’t have to try too hard comprehending the label, whereas the content is much more complex, it’s bigger, changes, is more difficult to confirm. Politics and advertising love labels, it sells things, that don’t necessarily work, easily to the masses. People, in general, are not good at processing content because they are too occupied with earning a living, looking after a family.

If mitochondria are ever classified as bacteria, then we are screwed, right?

The art world is full of group delusion. The king is wearing no clothes. Yet, paintings are still auctioned for thousands/millions. A successful delusion for the artist. A successful placebo for the buyer. I’d love to see Queen Elizabeth out in public, in full formal royal attire, after the group delusion of the importance of royalty in the modern world has fully shifted. I suppose she may even enjoy the personal freedom? No, I'd speculate it began with higher consciousness. A kind of trade off.

Some good points here. Mating would be a lot less successful without being at least partially delusional about prospective mates. Also, the other obvious successful delusion is the placebo effect. Harmless and effective for many. I’d imagine the placebo effect, in its various guises, must go back a long way in H. Sapien history.

Delusion (Psychiatry meaning) - A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence. You’re correct, I think, in that the problem of course is that any mental concept that seems successful to a tribe, is generally not considered as delusional until it becomes repetitively unsuccessful. Again deities are the obvious most powerful, pervasive contemporary delusion. And the believers, in the dominant religions, are generally doing well, in their respective primary tribes. Many would think this because of their belief.